Speculative Designs

The Libertine

In this project I have been given the opportunity to design for ‘The Nottingham Playhouse’ and work for Martin Barry (Director) on his rendition of The Libertine. The initial brief was to keep the performance period (1600’s) in some areas but to explore. This meant I was allowed to add my own interpretation of what the set could be. I was informed that areas of modernism were allowed but not to be overbearing. Finally, I was asked to stick to the play, not to go off peace and to make sure I stuck to this brief. In this project I hope to get more of an understanding of how a young designer needs to approach there work in the real world, what it is like to work for a professional director and to treat this project like a commissioned performance. I have to work with a theatre company and director, plus have the opportunity to present my work in a formal way and presenting my work in a professional manner.

I started the research stage by looking into the play, previous performances, movies, scripts and snapshots. This provided me with the information needed to build a concept. An area that gradually builds within the performance is Rochester’s battle with Syphilis, Therefore I chose infection as my concept and tried to create a design based around this.

The libertine, Model & Sketch book

Photoshop

Auto CAD (Side Elevation , Construction and Ground Plan).

Hamlet

The performance written in the 14th – 15th century by William Shakespeare is set within demark. The performance follows prince Hamlet, who seeks revenge upon his uncle Claudius. Claudius murdered his brother, Hamlet's father, in order to seize and capture the throne for himself, with the added goal of marrying hamlets deceased father’s wife and Hamlet's mother Gertrude. The storyline follows hamlets discovery of this, his battle to find the truth and the ghost of his father and the ultimate goal of revenge on his uncle.

Costume Design

In the introduction of the design project for ‘Hamlet', we explore different scenes and characters in depth as a whole group. Then were given a mini task to help me gain more knowledge on the performance. One of them was to make a short film, about the character that was given to you. then to use this short film in a master class on Digital Projection. This help uses to think about how you could use Projection Mapping in your own design.

At the start of the topic, we were given the chance to explore Hamlet in our own way. I came across some challenges, about my design and whether the concept was relevant. The concept of my design is about control, as this helped me to link it back the real performance and the script the ‘William Shakespeare' wrote. An example would be how hamlet is controlled by his uncle the becomes king (Claudius). The way the I made sure the set could work well with my concept is by play around with design and imager in my sketchbook. Then went on to apply different elements together as a model developed throughout the project. I achieved my design and concept by applying all of my research together and then exploring with two different design ideas. For example, Victorian and 1920's American Prohibition, were two ideas I thought about. However, was more interested in 1920's because I was inspired by ‘F Scott Fitzgerald'. Who wrote the novel on about a corrupt society? In the film ‘The Great Gatsby'. ‘Gatsby' is presented to do whatever what he wants and to acts a bit obsessed in some parts of the film, which links to his hamlet's character. This is when I started to link the play, how element set and script were very corrupt.

I found most difficult in this topic was actually text of book ‘Hamlet' by ‘William Shakespeare'. The reason why Is because even though the language has been translated into modern day English language it was still quite hard to understand in depth. however, the way I overcame this Is by breaking the play down for my unitisation.